When I first moved into my wee little mobile home from the early 1970's I didn't know I'd be adopting the local ant colony as well. Some home furnishings were left by the late occupant and I immediately began to snoop. Snoop isn't entirely accurate now that everything belonged to me, but it felt like snooping. It wasn't my home until my stuff was in and her's was out. On the counter were an old set of plastic canisters, not air tight in any way, but cute and tidy looking. I lifted the tops and in one found little tiny ants crawling on the food. I don't remember what food it was now. My nose wrinkled and I put the lid back on and continued my browse. The place was immaculately tidy and you could tell the engineer son who sold his mother's house to me loved her much by the all the genius "additions" that made life easier for her, including the handles on the washer and dryer and between all the cupboard doors that helped the old woman hang on when she was putting things away. They made me smile and I kept them.
It was a while before I met more of the ant family. They stuck to the outdoors as much as possible and spring weather kept them busy. Later, i'm not sure how much later, a few ants came to say hello. One here, another there, mostly in the kitchen a few in the bathroom. I named them Liza and Legs and Small Fry before I got the toilet paper, wound half the role on my hand, gathered them up as delicately as I could and flushed them.
Completely grossed out and annoyed that they made their presence known without permission, my daughter discovered a new way of communication..."ANT!!!" Every single ant she found, all lonesome in its scout for something sweet, would be greeted with a single syllabic scream or holler. She was young I forgave the first few times, grit my teeth the next few times, and "get it your dang self" came shortly after. It was just a tiny ant after all and with only six micro legs, nothing like the eight legs that all the spiders where sporting those days.
Eventually, the whole community of ants decided they'd all like to meet us and came in by fashionable loose lines. I found my spay and said goodbye and no thank you.
That summer they took revenge. Line after line, crack by old-house crack, they found their way in and Liza and Legs and Small Fry became Damn It and Splat and I Hate You before I disposed of them. A brave few managed occasionally to crawl onto my pant leg while I was reading a book or onto my computer screen. Never mind how it go there, a quick flick of the finger usually sent it flying across the living room. I do believe they enjoyed it.
It seems to happen in waves. One year we have lots of tiny visitors, another year I hardly see one scout. On such a year we see them outside and once we made an ant bath house out of an upturned butter bucket with cut out doors. In the lid, now the floor, was a puddle of sticky Terro juice I added for them at the snack counter and we placed twigs in the doors so they would more easily find their way in. We recorded a video of their tiny black happy dance.
(when and if I find this video I'll add it)
In time my daughter grew and became more earth and air friendly and we came to dislike spraying chemicals in our home for the large scale attacks we encountered. I found a non-toxic brand but it smelled so very minty we gagged on it more than the old spray. So one day, exhausted from battle in three different rooms before bed the night before, I turned on the kitchen water, careful to lean over the side of the sink where more ants were mocked me, and I wet my hand and swiped them up with my palm and washed them off. Quick, easy, non-toxic. If you don't think about it, it's like wiping bread crumbs off the table with your hand. Just don't look at them closely while you do it. The ones that don't get stuck to the wet and begin to craw only tickle a little and soon they go down the drain as well. Even my once vocal daughter now picks them up without a second thought and rolls them between her fingers, decapitating them I'm sure. I frown when she wipes them off in the carpet and I make her vacuum.
It's amazing how you change. The ants and us get along alright now as long as they don't come in by the thousands, and I don't stress anymore just because there are ants on my stove and I need to cook dinner. If you turn the heat on they leave. I stopped naming them. It's easier to say goodbye if you don't and frankly I couldn't tell them apart.
P.S. It's the price I pay for the quiet lovely and almost secluded corner lot beside the hazel nut orchard in this mobile park. I could be crammed in one of the newer home in the loop with sidewalks between 34 and 36 with a low wire fences as the only thing keeping the little noisy kids from spying or the dogs from driving me crazy. Plus, I thank God we don't have roaches or some other intolerable critter. Ants ARE the cleaners of the world I've heard. However, if they touch my bed I'm pulling out the hairspray and lighter and will do battle at the peaks of their stupid ant hill by the third stepping stone to the left with the little daisy weed shading the entrance and fat butted queen Bertha will rethink sending her troops across the lawn.
